Memorable characters at 'Kings Point'

ray Beach, Fla., retirement home. Many of the subjects of "Kings Point" have been in their condominiums since the 1970s and have lost spouses, friends and family members. Most live alone, but they have one another and occasionally admit they need that. Some men and women couple up, while other feisty elderly women recoil at the thought of taking care of an "old" man. And they share these thoughts with colorful audacity.

While Kings Point is not as fancy as the Del Boca Vista home where Jerry's parents lived on "Seinfeld," its residents would not be out of place on that comedy. We learn that muscles, memories and hairlines may recede over the decades, but the human capacity for passion, jealousy, longing and loneliness never flags. It's a film as amusing as it is moving.

In exploring our soci-

ety's ambivalence toward aging and our need for community as well as self-reliance, director Sari Gilman has found a thought-provoking subject. But more than that, she has uncovered a memorable cast of characters. This is very highly recommended.

---Are we in the middle of a miniseries revival? The multipart "Vikings" and "The Bible" (8 p.m., Lifetime), which both

premiered on the History Channel, have done very well on cable. And tonight brings two new extended dramas.

In the two-part series "Ring of Fire" (8 p.m., Reelz, concluding Tuesday), an oil company boss (Terry O'Quinn, "Lost") battles to use a radical oil-drilling technique in a rural community short on jobs. His problems with local environmentalists are put on the back burner when his company drills into a pocket of molten magma, sparking an unprecedented geological incident with Earth-shattering potential.

An ambitious project featuring the ongoing debate over hydrofracturing, "Ring of Fire" suffers from clunky dialogue and an inconsistent tone. Sometimes it proceeds in a deadly earnest manner, and a minute later you almost expect a Saturday night Syfy monster movie to erupt.

"Family Band: The Cowsills Story" (10 p.m., Showtime Showcase) recalls the wholesome harmonies of singers who had several hit singles in the late 1960s and inspired the "Partridge Family" television show.

SERIES NOTES

---The final four revealed on "The Biggest Loser" (8 p.m., NBC, TV-PG).